Gates: Vista Better the Mac OS X

Gates: Vista Better the Mac OS X

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Bill Gates thinks Microsoft’s latest OS, Vista, is the best operating system in the world. He thinks so much of it, in fact, that in a recent interview with Newsweek’s Steven Levy, he started to mention Apple and the Mac OS X before the subject was even broached by the interviewer. So let’s take a look at a few things Mr. Gates had to say.

On Security in Vista:
"The number [of violations] will be way less because we’ve done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn’t done any of those things."

Microsoft is claiming that Vista will be much harder for the spyware and virus makers to infect the system. The proof will come once Vista has been released for more than a week. But already Bill Gates is taking a swipe at Apple. Yes, Apple has not had to layer as much protection into the Mac OS as Microsoft has had to with Vista. After releasing the biggest hackable and unsafe operating system in history (XP) Microsoft had to do a better job this time around. They could not have done much worst. But to even make a veiled suggestion that Vista is more secure than the Mac OS X is foolhardy. How long as OS X been on computers? Six years? And how many viruses, trojans, or spyware has been released to actually infect that OS? Oh, yeah, none.

On Features in Vista that copy Mac OS X:
Here Bill Gates gets very defensive, going so far as to suggest that it is not Vista aping the Mac OS X, but Apple stealing ideas from Microsoft. This is incredulous, and not even worth my time to rebut.

In that same paragraph, however, Mr. Gates outright lies. He says "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally."

Wow. Amazing. He then goes on to say, "I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." The richest man in the world, while defending his companies product, actually resorts to a fourth-grade school yard taunt. And this, after five years of causing consumers and businesses billions of dollars to fix or safegaurd Microsoft’s hackable, unsafe operating system. Truly astounding. And yet again, Mr. Gates attacks the Mac OS X in the hope of making Vista look better.

As someone who has tried Vista, I can honestly say I like it better than Windows XP. There is no compelling reason for any Mac user to think of switching to Vista. It does not offer anything of any significance for a Mac user that OS X does not already do, and usually does much better. There is also little doubt that Microsoft tried to make their own version of OS X for Windows, and got much of it right. At least visually. But like the security questions that will only be answered with time, so too will the success of Microsoft in creating an OS that comes close to the reliability, stability, security, and usability that Apple already enjoys with Mac OS X.

In many ways, it feels like 1995 all over again. It is Microsoft VS Apple. Windows VS Macintosh. While there is no question which operating system will sell more copies, I am reminded of a quote from November 26, 1991, in the New York Times: "DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."

‘Nuff said.